Search - Nick Cave, Bad Seeds :: Kicking Against the Pricks

Best Interpretation of "Standards" In Any Genre

Zachary A. Hanson | Tallahassee, FL United States | 02/05/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"And, strangely, best Nick Cave album of all, considering his catalog of excellent and provocative original material (most of which you should buy, especially the stuff from around this time, like _From Her to Eternity_ and _First Born Is Dead_). I'm sure there is no other album out there whose title can be said to reference both a book of short stories by Samuel Beckett (to go with Cave's minimalistic tendencies) and the New Testament (to amplify his obsession with retribution and other biblical topics). Perfect company. The emotion he wrings out of these old and largely obscure songs is well-nigh unparalleled in the history of recorded music. Several of these are country songs by the likes of Johnny Cash and Earl Campbell, feeding beautifilly into Cave's Southern Gothic kick at the time. Then you have the heroin chic of VU's "All Tomorrow Parties" turned cowboy with yells and whips. Then there's gospel (sung rousingly in barbershop quartet style on "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well"--you'd swear you're at a tent revival). And then classic rock in the guise of a foot-stomping version of . . . Ram Jam's "Black Betty"? I'll just say that what the original possesses in Queen-like pastiche and excess, the cover compensates for in field holler mania. All of this is made all-the-more poignant by the very basic recording values at play here. The Bad Seeds thrive with a lead man on the edge between maudlin and mad; they play off him perfectly, making the bare-bones recording jump out at you with the virtue of frantic and impassioned playing alone. The only other place where you will hear such a range of emotion evinced from two or three chords is on a record of Lightnin' Hopkins or Leadbelly originals, making this one of the most visceral listening experiences you will ever encounter. Especially noteworthy is the extremely "out there" version of Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe," where Cave pounds the piano within an inch of the hammers' lives."